Talk:Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei
Characters Set and Lucifer do not appear in the first Megami Tensei novel, but they do in the first game. Set has one line in the epilogue, in which he just reveals he's going to be around in the next book. Which isn't enough to put him on this page, I think. SeventhEvening 06:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC) Makai "Makai" is not a word used in the novels. The demon/human planes are called something like Aziluth/Asiya which are real terms with origins in "Kabbalah". I don't have time to track down the correct spelling atm... Google in it's infinite wisdom found the spelling when paired together (Atziluth Asiya) --Yksehtniycul 14:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC) Disambiguation I just added a mention of the anime of the same name to this page, but someone who knows what they're doing should probably add a disambiguation alert at the top of the page, and possibly take the mention out of the article. Also the game should be at Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei(Namcot Video Game) and also added to the disambiguation page, along with the two other games of the same title. :Alright, a couple things: ::Is a page devoted to the anime necessary? I've seen it and read a translation of the book. The anime was basically a watered down version of the book. It was also pretty crappy and didn't really contribute much to the whole thing. I think we'd be perfectly fine just adding in a section about the anime adaption to this page, but that's just IMHO. ::Next, what two other games? I know there is a mobile phone port of Megami Tensei, but I'm not sure what other other title you're talking about is. I know the mobile phone port really doesn't need it's own page. I could see reason to move to a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (Game), or making a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (Novel) something along those lines, but lets get everything hammered out first. :After we get everything worked out, I'm fine with creating a disambiguation page, but I don't want to jump the gun without having my facts straight. SeventhEvening 20:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::Are you ****ing kidding??? ::That anime happens to be my all time favorite contribution of Megaten to human existence?! Megaten at it's finest as far as I'm concerned. Take the splendor of that anime and combine it with Megami Tensei II and the universe would probably implode... but WTF??? Of course EVERYTHING Megaten deserves absolutely must have a page in a Megaten wiki. Much less an essential part of Megaten heritage, way back when Megaten was cool!! ::PS: Don't look at me... I'm not making a disambiguation page. Just complaining is all. But yes, this is the way it should be. --Yksehtniycul 21:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::Btw, the cell phone remake should have it's own page in a perfect world. And the original game is documented herehttp://www.digitaldevildb.com/games/megami-tensei-titles/nihon-telenet-megami-tensei/ ::Excluding the cell phone game, there might only be the one other, but I can't shake memories of there being two others, or even three. There are also two different versions of the gauntlet style game which play/look considerably differently, but are essentially the same formula, just taking advantage of the available hardware. --Yksehtniycul 21:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC) :::I can't tell if that was sarcastic or not.... I mean, the book was trashy and violent, but it was charming at the same time. The anime just kinda seemed....not charming? Or something. But to each his own. Anyway, I feel if not enough has changed from a port or adaption like that to warrant a ton of pages. I'd rather have a very detailed page that covers the anime and the novel, then two pages that each contain hardly any information. I mean, with the cell phone game getting it's own page, wouldn't we also need a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (MSX) and a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (FM-77) and a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (PC-88)? Each one would be a contain about a paragraph. I'd rather see a Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (Telenet) with several paragraphs and a detailed comparison between versions. But you're right, the Namcot game needs a separate page, I just wasn't aware of this Telenet version. I vote we create an anime page after we have enough information on this page to warrant a separation. Although this is a bit debatable. I thought we should wait a bit before making a page about Persona on PSP, but Bluer thought we should go ahead. I'm not sure if he did it or not. But then he merged my Maken X and Maken Shao pages together and rewrote the text to play the games down. Orz...my turn to complain :). SeventhEvening 21:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::::Personally I'd be one to vote to axe any X (Maken) pages on technical grounds. The PC-88 and FM-77 and MSX should all be on the same page. The problem with mixing cross media is it becomes confusing what is what. I've never seen a wikipedia set of pages that does this, even if one page is only a sentence. And I think a wiki such as this, should follow wikipedia's lead, because it is so standardized, that people know how it works, and expect the same. Unless your wiki is a radical departure from the wikipedia format, I'd say do things wikipedia way whenever possible (I know slightly offtopic / pertinent to another discussion page) ::::As for the anime, I'm an accomplished artist, and a connoisseur of anime (well classic pre-90s stuff mostly, everything post '95 tends to make me angry) and I gotta say, the anime is in my top five of all time, and not at all because it's Megaten. It's really brilliant in artistic terms, but then people think the anime that followed it is so much better (when it's technically total rubbish) --Yksehtniycul 21:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC) :::::I think it should stay simply because even though it's not technically a Megaten game, it's frequently listed on most Megaten series website I've visited and frequently gets mentioned by fans. Not to mention...where else do you go for information on Maken? But that is neither here nor there. ::::: Well, following the logic of the PC-88/FM-77/MSX all being one page, then the mobile version shouldn't get it's own page either. I can see your point with the anime, although I wouldn't say everyone has exactly the same expectations of wikipedia, especially on something like this. In fact, I was thinking that keeping the Anime on the same page because of a lack of information was the wikipedia way of doing things. After all there is some evidence to the contrary. I'd say there's no hard and fast rules, even for the "wikipedia way", especially since their rules constantly evolve, as do ours. :::::And I see what you mean, it was very good from a technically standing point. I'm a writer (I won't say accomplished) so I was looking at it from a story telling point of view. I thought the book was better in plot progression and it possessed a certain charm in it's lack of technical prowess. Aya Nishitani certainly wasn't exactly Murakami or Shakespeare, but that kinda improved it's brutal charm. It was essentially a horror rape fantasy that had a pinch of mythology. Ironic that the videogames based on it eventually became deep and philosophical. SeventhEvening 22:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::::::People trash the anime on all sorts of grounds, but it's because a) they don't really understand/appreciate art. And b) they don't take it for what it is. It does a great job with the material given it's running time. Traditional animation is so expensive to produce, it's amazing it ever gets done. The direction is amazing, though I couldn't authoritatively say it was completely intentional. Sometime brilliant art is more a product of the era than the people involved. A lot of great French art is half handedly called trash, mostly by puritans that don't get it. My stomach just goes into knots when I think about what Megaten could've been like if it had continued down such a course, and not fallen into the lap of Atlus (or what it became) ...I'd love to see a mature, unapologetic, and lovingly hand crafted version of Megaten some day. But it would probably take either Atlus going under, or an unlicensed "fan" game to ever happen. The anime is just beautiful, and it's symmetry is perfect however compressed it might be. As a hard boiled minimalist I can't help but adore it. --Yksehtniycul 22:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::::::PS: A cell phone game would need it's own page. As does a PSP remake. Any remake, even if it looks like more of a "long-distance" port, should have it's own page. Wikipedia covers everything, for a topic oriented wiki, organization is more important than fatty pages. And the only reason that Devil Children page is like that, is because no one has broken it up, and it is not considered important enough to police. In a Megaten wiki, everything is important, especially the defining topic!! --Yksehtniycul 22:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC) :::::::Well, I'm fine with that. We'll make an anime page then. I do think the PSP game should have a page, but I still disagree with the cellphone game. It would be a page that would either be copied and pasted from the Famicom page, or it would be a page saying nothing but A cell phone adaption of Megami Tensei on NTT DoCoMo (or whatever network) released on 20XX. There is literally nothing else to say. I think it would be more informative and helpful to simply say there is a mobile phone port on the game's main page. There is probably a larger difference between the PC-77 and MSX versions of Megami Tensei then there are between Megami Tensei Famicom and Cellphone versions. Going with "Wikipedia way" again, we have this example. And yes, there is a page for the PS1 remake, but it is about to be re-merged with the article. Further we have this one. Honestly, the way wikipedia's guidelines seem to go, the only reason the Persona PSP game got it's own page was because the other MIP page focuses on Revelations, while the PSP version is not mangled. Well, at least, not in the translation sense. SeventhEvening 23:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC) ::::::::I've seen images of the cell phone game. It is considerably different. There would be a lot to put on it's page that would basically just soil the original games page... but only differences. Content should never be duplicated if it is in fact identical. Again I'm good at decreeing shit, but fail when it comes to adding content!! ::::::::PS: I think the operative question is, is this just a port part of the same release cycle? Or is this a new release cycle. If so it needs it's own page. And a port is not the same as a localization job. A localization generally always has enough info to warrant it's own page (in a perfect world) --Yksehtniycul 23:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Other books The articles about the novels refers to them as a trilogy, implying there are only 3 books. However, I found out there are actually 9 books! You can see the covers here: http://hiro.moo.jp/owariya/basic/story/basic.htm --Nagumo baby (talk) 15:50, September 8, 2012 (UTC) :Digital Devil Story is a trilogy. The other six are New Digital Devil Story. However, I've heard bad things about NDDS (though in fairness, I also heard that the author wanted to just have the original trilogy, and wrote NDDS basically because the fans begged him to, though I think the popularity of the RPGs may have factored into it too) Of course, aside from a basic summery (Lucifer leads demon invasion, main characters are reincarnations of Amaterasu and Susano-o) I know nothing about NDDS. It's somehow even more obscure than DDS.--Otherarrow (talk) 16:05, September 8, 2012 (UTC) ::Ah, I see. I never read any information about them on English websites, so I assumed nobody heard of them before. That website I linked to also has short summaries of all the novels. I may have noticed something interesting (and this is a spoiler): the last book ends with the world getting nuked. I wonder if that means the book series ties into MTII and SMT somehow? I have yet to play those games, so I wouldn't know for sure, though. --Nagumo baby (talk) 12:46, September 9, 2012 (UTC) :::Also, the setting of the fourth book is in "199X". I believe that date was mentioned in MTII. --Nagumo baby (talk) 13:58, September 9, 2012 (UTC) ::::I dunno. I think the RPGs were in full swing by the time of NDDS so it's possible that was done to tie into that (or at least pretend to), but the third of the original novels (Demise of the Reincarnation) is incompatible with the Famicom games (though in fairness, I am pretty sure it was written after the first game was released) and NDDS follows from that. Think of it like the time line splits after Warrior of the Demon City.--Otherarrow (talk) 14:10, September 9, 2012 (UTC) :::::It's possible the first game is an alternate continuity, with an early happy ending, and the rest (MT II, SMT, etc.) tie into the novels. It's just speculation, but it might be interesting to look into. --Nagumo baby (talk) 14:22, September 9, 2012 (UTC) ::::::No, MTII explicitly calls back to the first game. Also, SMT isn't link to the novels at all.--Otherarrow (talk) 16:18, September 9, 2012 (UTC) ::::::: Ah, too bad. I was starting to like my theory. But I still think both the novels and the games refering to a nuclear war in "199X" is a pretty interesting connenction. --Nagumo baby (talk) 17:57, September 9, 2012 (UTC) New Download Link In the second link, you're supposed to be able to download a copy, because Japan doesn't treat us like real fans, and won't let us get it here, but on the second link, the link to download it is broken. Should it be deleted? Whether it is deleted or not, should a new one to download a copy be found?